Jane Lynch to host 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards

Jane Lynch hosts the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards (7 p.m., Fox). Nancy O’Dell, Mark Thompson and Amanda Byram host “Countdown to the Emmys” (6 p.m., Fox) for those who can’t wait to see the arriving celebrities and their expensive frocks.

The hosting gig should allow Lynch, an accomplished comic actor and improviser, to transcend her rather two- dimensional role as coach Sue on “Glee.” And Lynch is smart enough to avoid depressingly predictable jokes about Snooki and Charlie Sheen.

Look for the festivities to honor shows past and hype series yet to air. Presenters include Ashton Kutcher, whose stint on “Two and a Half Men” begins Monday, and Zooey Deschanel, soon to be seen in the Fox comedy “New Girl.” Will Arnett will be on hand, perhaps to receive an Emmy for his work on “30 Rock” and certainly to plug his new series “Up All Night.” Look for stars of returning series, including Julianna Margulies (“The Good Wife”), Amy Poehler (“Parks and Recreation”) and Sofia Vergara (“Modern Family.”).

• Produced by Ice-T, “Planet Rock: The Story of Hip- Hop and the Crack Generation” (9 p.m., VH1) explores the ways that the crack epidemic of the mid-1980s affected music and how the media and political reaction to the drug scourge fostered societal changes that were reflected and all but institutionalized into hip-hop culture. Interviews include Snoop Dogg, Cypress Hill’s B- Real, and the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA and Raekwon.

Crack is hardly the first drug to influence or even define a musical era. Frank Sinatra did not call himself a “saloon singer” for nothing. The impact of heroin on jazz artists has been well explored, as has the “psychedelic” rock sound arising from experimentation with LSD and marijuana. “Crack Generation” argues that the government reaction to that epidemic dwarfed all previous anti-drug crusades and has left the United States with the largest and the most disproportionately black prison population in the world.

Tonight’s highlights

• On two helpings of “The Good Wife” (CBS): Sarah Silverman (7 p.m.), the second time around (8 p.m.).